Biden Also Gave 'Biden Rule' Speech in 2005; Reid, Podesta Were All For It

Biden Also Gave 'Biden Rule' Speech in 2005; Reid, Podesta Were All For It

The “Biden Rule” Was First The Byrd Rule

Now that President Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, we are hearing even more accusations from Democrats that Republicans are shirking their constitutional duty to consider the president’s nominee. In its web page on the Garland nomination, the White House asserted:

[Obama] looks forward to the Senate doing its job of holding a hearing and allowing members to vote on the nominee. That’s what is written in the Constitution …

Similarly, Hillary Clinton issued a statement asserting that the Senate has a “serious obligation” to consider the nominee because the Constitution does not “make an exception to that duty in an election year.”

The Democrats should take a breath and ponder the words of one of their own, who was widely regarded as “the conscience of the Senate” and its most knowledgeable historian -- the late Senator Robert Byrd.

In a speech on the Constitution’s “advise and consent” provisions to the Center for American Progress on April 25, 2005, Senator Byrd declared:

There is no stipulation in the Constitution as to how the Senate is to express its advice or give its consent. President Bush incorrectly -- incorrectly -- maintains that each nominee for a federal judgeship is entitled to an up or down vote. The Constitution does not say that. I say the Constitution itself does not say that each nominee is entitled to an up or down vote. The Constitution doesn’t say that, it doesn’t even say that there has to be a vote with respect to the giving of its consent. The Senate can refuse to confirm a nominee simply by saying nothing and doing nothing.

Senator Byrd was introduced, and his remarks lavishly praised, by the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, John Podesta.

Podesta is now Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.

Two days later, Byrd's speech was also heavily quoted, lavishly praised, and included in full in the printed version of a prolix (13,000+ word), 90-minute floorspeech by Senator Joe Biden.

Biden’s entire speech was devoted to the issue at the center of the debate over the Garland nomination. Since he attached so much significance to it, he prepared by seeking the counsel of a panel of Constitutional scholars. Biden declared it was “one of the most important” speeches of his 32-year Senate career. Since Biden’s contradictions have been so hotly debated during the current nomination controversy, it is odd that this speech has been virtually ignored in favor of another prolix speech (about 20,000 words) the Delaware senator delivered in June 1992.

Vice President Biden has retorted that Republicans have taken his 1992 comments out of context, misread his “purpose,” and distorted “the broader meaning” of his speech.

All the more reason, then, to take a close look at Biden’s more recent April 2005 speech which culminated in his full-throated endorsement of Senator Byrd’s argument that “the Senate can refuse to confirm a nominee simply by saying nothing and doing nothing.”

Whatever the “broader meaning” of Senator Biden’s 2005 speech, its clearly stated and unambiguous purpose was to defend the ability of even a minority of senators to prevent the Senate from considering a Supreme Court nominee.

A majority of senators can withhold their consent by voting against a nominee or simply refusing to vote, but, as Biden insisted, the only avenue open to a minority was the filibuster, and his speech was an impassioned demand that the filibuster option be left open.

Biden has reversed his position on unrestricted Senate debate a number of times over the years. He was for it before he was against it before he was for it before he was against it. But his important 2005 speech was an unqualified defense of the principle that a minority of senators have -- and should have -- the right to prevent the Senate from even considering a Supreme Court nominee.